Chips Ahoy celebrates Mother's Day with a drag queen

Chips Ahoy, that cookie brand synonymous with kids and wholesome good times wanted to do a little somethin' extra special for Mother's Day today. So they posted a tweet featuring Jose Cancel, otherwise known as Vanessa Vanjie Mateo from RuPaul's Drag Race.

Vanessa, who just yesterday gave a hearty "shout out to the dick suckers," on Twitter enthusiastically and breathlessly expressed as much love for processed junk food and gave fond Mothers' day wishes to everyone, whether they were mothers or not.

"Y'all know what are we celebrating today? Mother's Day. And I am so thankful to have a mother like mine who supports me through all my craziness and loves on me, and buys me Chips Ahoy cookies. Chewy, the Original, everything under the sun, my mom knows I love my cookies...and what is a sweet gesture to do for your mamma? Your real mamma, your drag mamma, whichever..somebody, whoever takes care of you. Whoever you feel or consider your mamma..it's their day today. get them a cookie.."

Hard to believe but responses were less than enthusiastic. The usual complaints of people vowing never to buy sugary processed junk food by Nabisco again, meme-loving shitlords and the "Get woke, go broke," crowd vowing economic ruination.

No doubt this will ultimately work well in the short term for Chips Ahoy. They tapped straight into the divisive mainframe that is Twitter (with a message of inclusiveness) and so mission accomplished. Everyone will be talking about it. Everyone will be fiercely angry, fiercely supportive, or just plain fierce in the case of the drag fans. Nothing brings people together like discord. Doesn't it taste yummy?

A casual scroll through Chips Ahoy's timeline suggests that whoever runs the account is a fan of the show, and also that this might have been a relatively quick decision to combine the pair. Score one for timeliness. But if other members of the demographic don't want their junk food representative to be giving shoutouts to dick suckers, will this have any effect on the long-term?

My issue with the ad has less to do with identity politics and wokeness and more to do with how bad the ad is. First of all, why did they not have Vanjie's mom in the ad, especially if you are talking about inclusiveness? I can't imagine they are paying much for this either way. What would a second talent have cost, especially if it meant featuring an actual mom?

Then again if they had two people on camera, it would have meant having to remove some of the product in this dismally staged ad. It really says something when the only subtlety is the talent. Everything from the product placement to the make-sure-to-name-the-different-types-of-cookie-varieties is informercial-levels of horrendous. Fabulous hair and makeup aside, it's the advertising equivalent to worst kind of reality TV: trashy and forgettable.

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